BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS

You won't believe what's 'next' in radical sex agenda

Teachers' union reportedly plans to 'liberate' children's 'identity'

Drew Zahn covers movies for WND as a contributing writer. A former pastor, he is the editor of seven books, including Movie-Based Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching, which sparked his ongoing love affair with film and his weekly WND column, "Popcorn and a (world)view." Drew currently serves as communications director for The Family Leader.

A key attorney in the fight for Christian and family values in California’s trend-setting school system warns his state’s teacher’s union is about to begin its “next major push” in the cultural battle over homosexuality in schools.

“‘Gender liberation’ will likely be the new vogue term used to describe the tidal wave that is fast approaching the shores of the California public school system,” writes Robert Tyler, founder of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a non-profit law firm dedicated to protecting religious liberty. “And you can be sure that it won’t stop there. It will spread throughout the nation and have disastrous consequences on the innocent.

“In other words,” Tyler explains of what “gender liberation” means, “male-female distinctions must be eliminated in order to ‘liberate’ children from unnecessary ‘stereotypes.’ This is not a movement seeking ‘equal rights,’ but a movement seeking to obliterate our God-given distinctions between male and female.”

Tyler’s law firm represents students and parents in a number of cases in California, including former high school student Chad Farnan, who brought suit against his history teacher for regularly ridiculing Christianity in class, including making the statement, “When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth.”

Attorney Robert Tyler

Tyler argues that the 325,000-member California Teachers Association “has allied itself” with radical homosexual activists and says he has uncovered evidence of how the CTA is pushing teachers to take the next step in “brainwash[ing] children into believing that gender neutrality is ideal for society.”

In October, the CTA hosted its third annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Conference under the theme “Pride in Education,” which included addresses from the group’s president and retired Col. Grethe Cammermeyer, who successfully sued to be reinstated in the National Guard 1994, despite being an admitted lesbian.

Tyler reports in the Christian Examiner that his group received literature distributed to public school teachers at the conference, including the following instructions on proper “gender etiquette” in schools:

“One way of acknowledging the needs of all people is to designate restrooms as gender neutral. … Each of us can decide for ourselves in which bathroom we belong.”

“Please do not assume anyone’s gender, even people you may have met in the past. A person’s external appearance may not match their internal gender identity.”

“Pay attention to a person’s purposeful gender expression. We consider it polite to ask: ‘What pronoun do you prefer?’ or, ‘How do you identify?’ before using pronouns or gendered words for anyone.”

The CTA’s website touts the conference with reactions reportedly from educators, including a 4th-grade teacher named Lisa Bartoli from Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers Association.

“I know that some of my elementary students may be experiencing a sense of being different without attaching such feelings to a specific identity,” Bartoli is quoted as saying. “One reason for participating in the GLBT Conference was to learn how better to help such students and those around them become more tolerant of differences.”